Karrie Fransman's Comicshttp://www.karriefransman.com
Karrie Fransman is a professional comic creator whose graphic novels, comics, illustrated articles and experimental comics have been exhibited and published in books, newspapers and magazines worldwide.Mon, 23 Feb 2015 10:52:58 +0000en-GBhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Literary Festivals in Croatia and Irelandhttp://www.karriefransman.com/testy-tesy/
http://www.karriefransman.com/testy-tesy/#commentsTue, 06 Aug 2013 23:31:05 +0000http://karriefransman.elasticbeanstalk.com/?p=471Hi Ya’ll, Just back from holidaying and wanted to catch up on my (vastly overdue) blogging about two incredibly inspiring literary festivals I attended in the last couple of months.

CROATIA AND THE FESTIVAL OF EUROPEAN SHORT STORIES

In May I visited Croatia for the first time and travelled to Zagreb for the Festival of European Short Stories. The festival was fantastic. The organisers were young and inspired and created a really special atmosphere that began with Croatia’s most famous writers hosting a roof-top BBQ for the international guests (and yes- cooking as well. Those Croats know how to cook and write equally well!). Each night there was five hours of short story reading (rather like a mammoth bedtime story session- see photograph below) from writers from the many corners of the world including Croatia, Iran, Lebanon, Serbia, France, Spain and Wales who was the guest country this year. Thanks toMartina Kenji for the wonderful photographs.

I ran a workshop (see photograph below), did two comics based on the wonderful short stories by Welsh writers Mary Costello and Deborah Kay Davies and had a tv interview with the fantastic Danijela.

The reason I was lucky enough to attend this festival is because I had met one of it’s founders- the lovely Roman Simic, in Lebanon at the Hay festival. I was so impressed by his energy (and his fantastic writing!) and we discussed some ways to introduce comics into the festival and Roman enthusiastically made each happen. We managed to find a group of Croatian women comic artists (via the wonderful Women in Comics Europe facebook group) and they agreed to each illustrate 2 of the short stories that were read at the festival. Below is a wee exhibition of the comics which included comics by Lea Kralj Jager, Helena Janečić, Ivana Armanini, Ivana Pipal, Sara Divljak and myself.

I also had the chance to extend my collection of comic artists from all over the world with these two lovely and talented specimens: Robert Solanovic and Lea Kralj Jager. The comics community really is so small and global that i love getting in touch with the comic creators of each new country I visit.

A Huge big thank you to Roman Simic, Andrea Rozic, Jelena Spreicer and all the Festival of European Short Stories team for making my trip so special.

IRELAND AND THE HAY FESTIVAL IN KELLS.

The very next month I found myself in Ireland for only the second time in my life for the very first Irish Kells Hay festival in the wonderful town of Kells (home of the illuminated text- the Book of Kells). I was delighted to be accompanied by the wonderful Irish comic and horror writer Maura McHugh who has written a far superior blog on our weekend here.

My talk was the very first one on the Friday so I was happy to get the scary bit out the way and get on with enjoying all the amazing talent the festival had to offer. We watched an amazing talks by Germain Greer andJeanette Wintersonwho we later met briefly at parties and over breakfast buns at the hotel.

In the evening we watched a wonderful poetry reading under the stars outside a pub and didn’t get rained on once. We took part in a Girley bog walk (which was not girly in the slightest) and we had to escape when we realised we were only half way through after 2 hours. We fled the healthy outdoors for the dark and geeky world of books and attended John Banville’s talk.

Kells itself was the friendliest town I had ever set foot in. Shop owners stopped us in the streets to chat, a lady who’d attend my talk dragged me off to meet her husband on my way to the pub’s loos and an old Irish man got down on their knees in the hotel lobby to kiss my hand. Each any every shop window was crammed with books- from the bike shop (the biook shop?) to the butchers (or bookchers?)

Maura and I chatted away into the wee hours and managed to get a castle visit squeezed into all that conversing. By Sunday I was utterly inspired and exhausted- not from all my partying but from the Irish folk signing in the pub outside our hotel window until 3am. I did not mind a bit having bought silicon earplugs and fell asleep certain that I was experiencing authentic Irish partying (albeit whilst tucked up in my bed). I shared my plane journey home with an old Etonian Tory MP… which sums up the many varied folk you meet at literary events! A huge thank you to Peter Florence, Lyndy Cooke, Rhodri Jones and the whole Hay team for the fantastic weekend

YEEEHHHAAW! I am now officially funded by the Arts Council England. Our new graphic novel ‘Death of The Artist’ has received a grant. I am a very lucky girl indeed! A massive thanks to Nicola Streeten, Gemma Seltzer, Andrea Hawkins, Simon Trewin, Dan Franklin, Rosemary Davidson, Nic Roeg and Posy Simmonds for their support. Biggest thank you to the Arts Council England. Whoppeee!

The book will be published by Jonathan Cape and represented by Simon Trewin at William Morris Endeavour and the deadline is 2014. So… what’s the book all about? Well, it remains a bit of a secret right now. But I did give an exclusive interview to Forbidden Planet (before I received the grant), so you can hear more about it below. More will be revealed here soon so watch this page.

I was lucky enough to be invited by the British Council to the fantastic Kosmopolis literary festivalin Barcelona on March 14th-16th. It’s incredibly exciting to see more and more literary festivals all over the world embracing comics, and even better to see the British council supporting them too! I travelled along with the lovely Paul Gravett, Peter Stanbury, Paul Rainey and Dave Mckean who all provided fantastic conversation over some incredibly tasty dinners.

I ran a workshop titled: ‘Experimenting with comics: from sculpture to digital’ where we looked at how the medium of comics could determine the message. You can read a description of it here (in Spanish… or with the aid of Google Translate!): http://www.cccb.org/kosmopolis/es/noticia?idg=43559. The group who attended where so enthusiastic and thoughtful and that combined with the venue’s breathtaking views over the rooftops of Barcelona as the sunset really left me buzzing! Dave Mckean also popped along and enthusiastically joined in the debate over the definition of ‘comics’.

I heart Belgium. Honestly- where else are so many amazing comic artists and comic lovers packed into such a small place? in the last month I was lucky enough to be invited back twice for two different projects. First up was the world renowned Passa Porta literary festival featuring a host of brilliant writers from all over the world including the wonderful A S Byatt- swoon. We were invited for the festival, to run workshops and give talks and to see our work displayed at the stunning Belgium Strip Centre.

Passa Porta and Ilke Froyen in particular were responsible for bringing the world of comics to the world of literature with the Brussels in Shorts project that I wrote about in an earlier post. It was one of the best organised projects i’ve ever had the pleasure to be part of and included a 2-week residency, published book and exhibition of the 12 international artist’s work. It was great to finally meet the other artists who were brilliant and included: Frederik Van den Stock, Tomáš Kučerovský, Elric Dufau, Stedho, Conz, Paula Bulling, Salissou Maman Oumarou, Eva Hilhorst, Wauter Mannaert, William Goldsmith, Antonio & Carlos Segura Donat.

There is a rumour that as the project was such a success there may be another in the pipeline for published comic creators. So keep your ears open! Thank you Passa Porta and Ilke Froyen and all the Brussels in Shorts Jury for such an amazing opportunity.

Next up was the T+A+G event at Beursschouwburg I was invited to along with the wonderful British artist Hannah Berry. It was organised by a group of Belgium students who I had once lectured to on the comic degree at Sint Lukas in Brussels. Each of the 14 artists involved had to design a tote bag which was auctioned off (mine was a blue portrait of Frida Kahlo). The ‘popularity contest’ of an auction was incredibly nerve wrecking for Hannah and I, as I’d never experiences it before. But it was great to see all the fantastic young artists the country keeps churning out and to be able to visit Brussels again.

I also managed to make my first Lino cut at a workshop held by the talented Sien De Luyck and Hannah and I managed to pay a visit to Belgium’s own pee meister as this was her first time in Brussels. Thank you so much to Sarah Vierstraete and the T+A+G team for inviting us!

]]>http://www.karriefransman.com/back-to-brussels-for-passa-porta-festival-and-tag/feed/0All Comiced Out.http://www.karriefransman.com/all-comiced-out/
http://www.karriefransman.com/all-comiced-out/#commentsTue, 20 Nov 2012 20:14:44 +0000http://karriefransman.elasticbeanstalk.com/?p=611Goodness, have there been a lot of amazing events this month! The kick off of COMICA Festival in November unleashed a torrent of incredible exhibitions, talks, markets and awards which was followed by a Jonathan Cape event in Bristol, Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds and the Book Trust event back in London. Here is the low down:

First up I was invited to host the ‘50 Shades of Comics’ panel with the amazing Aline Kominsky-Crumb (Dirty Laundry, Need More Love, Drawn Together) and novelist Evie Blake (who adapted Guido Crepax’s erotic comic into a novel, Valentina). I suspect I was asked to host it as my book had a few naughty bits in it, but being a bit of a secret prude I was a little nervous about how I’d fair.Melinda Gebbie was also supposed to talk about her collaboration with husband Alan Moore on Lost Girls, but family obligations meant she unfortunately had to pull out. We talked about the inclination for women to have submissive fantasies and the roll of hate in sex and sex in hate. And Aline taught us how yoga can erm… aid oral sex. Fascinating stuff!

We were then invited by the Korean Cultural Centre to another COMICA panel/networking eventwith 5 fantastic Korean Manhwa artists: Lee Doo-Ho, Hyung Min-Woo, Chae Jung-Taek, Suk Jeong-Hyun and Jude Friday. I was pair up with the wonderful Chae Jung-Taek who I chatted to during the panel. His more recent comic is called Mr Kimchi and his comic about a sex-obsessed high school was turned into a movie. Check out this surreal clip below! It was great to see that Korean Manhwa had such strong ties with their sophisticated film industry. I am now dreaming of visiting!

Then we went up to my old university home of Leeds for Thought Bubble were I shared the Jonathan Cape table with Simone Lia and Hannah Berry and had 1000s of chats with 100s of shiny, happy comicey folk! Man I love you guys. (photos below with Ben Dickson and Hannah Berry).

Here’s a photo (left) pre-panel with the lovely Simone Lia and Hannah Berry (Sarah MacIntyre also spoke with us). And (right) later in the pub with rather red looking Megan Donnolley, Posy Simmonds and Simone Lia (Sarah McIntyre was taking the photo!). Pretty dramatic to witness Posy flying across the room to alert a young man whose double base had caught on fire. I kid you not. Could only happen in a pub full of storytellers!

That is all. I am spent and almost all comiced out. Almost… but not quite! x

Just returned from the lovely Shamballa festival to find two of my comics articles have been published:

The first is a 4-page article for the lovely Psychologies Magazine where I lived by four rules for one month (Page76) including giving up social media to giving away my possessions. The second is a 2-page comic for the New Statesman on aggression in comedy in their political comic special (Page 28). I interviewed Josie Long and Robin Ince among others and asked if we should be consuming comedy ethically.

It’s fantastic that more and more papers and magazines are open to the idea of graphic journalism and all it has to offer, and I hope to see more of it! Talking of which do check out this amazing Dutch website which has some fantastic examples of comic journalism sometimes embedded with audio and video. Truly inspiring! http://www.cartoonmovement.com/comic

]]>http://www.karriefransman.com/comic-articles-for-psychologies-magazine-and-the-new-statesman/feed/0Comics for The Telegraph, Psychologies Magazine and Strumpet.http://www.karriefransman.com/comics-for-the-telegraph-psychologies-magazine-and-strumpet/
http://www.karriefransman.com/comics-for-the-telegraph-psychologies-magazine-and-strumpet/#commentsThu, 02 Aug 2012 12:13:28 +0000http://karriefransman.elasticbeanstalk.com/?p=669For those of you who didn’t know, I went fully freelance in April this year having finished my part-time 18 month comic youth project. I must admit I was pretty scared but it’s been a rollercoster ride of unpredictability including trips to Brussels, Moscow, Glasgow, Beirut and Latitude festival and lots of varied jobs (in varied styles!). Below is a sneak peak at a couple of the pieces I may have not shown you before…

This is a comic review of the Hay Literary Festival Beirut I did for their sponsors- The Telegraph.

A wee teaser of the 4-page comic article I wrote for Psychologies Magazine that will be out in September.

Part of a 2-page comic review I did for the wonderful Strumpet anthology out… soon?

I watched lots of interesting ‘customers’ while putting this display up at Gosh in the heart of seedy Soho. One who came to browse in the comic store while waiting for his slot in the brothel across the road. Should have recommended Chester Brown! My granny, Mrs Dubach, did not approve.

]]>http://www.karriefransman.com/my-window-display-at-gosh-comic-shop-soho/feed/0Illustrated Article for The Guardian.http://www.karriefransman.com/illustrated-article-for-the-guardian/
http://www.karriefransman.com/illustrated-article-for-the-guardian/#commentsTue, 10 Jul 2012 13:21:43 +0000http://karriefransman.elasticbeanstalk.com/?p=682I recently published an illustrated article with The Guardian’s Comment is Free where I interviewed five graduates about the struggles of life post-uni: debts, being forced to live at home etc. It was fascinating to get to chat to these intelligent, hard working young people but so sad that they’re struggling.

I was more nervous putting this comic than usual as I felt responsible for represnting their stories. But great to see The Guardian’s supporting graphic journalism and showing what we can do with this great medium! I’ve got some similar projects in the pipeline so keep your eyes out!